City budget manager placed on leave

Colorado Springs Budget Manager Lisa Bigelow has been placed on administrative leave, the latest high-ranking city official to face uncertainty under the Bach administration.

City Council President Pro Tem Jan Martin said the council received notice on Friday.

The notice stated that Bigelow had been “placed on administrative leave but that Kara Kinner was available for any questions that might come up,” Martin said Monday.

The notice didn’t indicate why Bigelow had been placed on leave, Martin said.

Councilwoman Brandy Williams said she received the notice from Chief of Staff Laura Neumann but that she had what she called “no information” about why Bigelow was placed on leave.

“I always thought Lisa was very helpful,” Williams said.

“Being an engineer, numbers are my thing and numbers are her thing, and she always had an answer for all of my questions as to how and why the numbers were the way they were,” she said. “I was very appreciative of her knowledge.”

When asked whether Bigelow would lose her job, Martin said: “You’d have to ask the mayor’s office.”

Neumann would only say that Bigelow had been placed on 30 days paid administrative leave and that she would make a statement once the city had reached a settlement with Bigelow.

Cindy Aubrey, Mayor Steve Bach’s chief communications officer, provided information showing that Bigelow joined the city in 1994 as a senior analyst making $52,283 a year. As budget manager, Bigelo is paid $119,054.

Bigelow, who could not be reached for comment, has been in hot water with the mayor in recent weeks.

Last month, Bigelow provided council liaison Aimee Cox a string of private emails showing that Bach didn’t want to implement changes that council had made to the 2012 budget. It’s unclear whether Bigelow forwarded the emails by accident or on purpose.

“I can’t believe the Mayor’s Office really wanted us to see this,” Cox wrote in an email to council President Scott Hente on Jan. 13 when she forwarded the chain of emails to him.

Bigelow also was blamed for including $1.3 million in performance-based pay increases for city employees in the 2012 budget even though the mayor had previously called for a salary freeze.

“What was it about my directive that folks didn’t understand?” Bach said when asked about the pay increases during a press conference last month.

“I don’t like surprises,” he said.

Stay tuned to gazette.com for updates.